With help from MySpace, OneRepublic makes it big

Wednesday

Nov 26, 2008 at 12:01 AMNov 26, 2008 at 3:44 PM

If you've left your house in the last couple of years, chances are you've heard OneRepublic's "Apologize," or the band's equally radio friendly "Stop and Stare." The songs are played in bars, in stores, pretty much anywhere music is piped into.

Danielle Hatch

If you've left your house in the last couple of years, chances are you've heard OneRepublic's "Apologize," or the band's equally radio friendly "Stop and Stare." The songs are played in bars, in stores, pretty much anywhere music is piped into.

And the Los Angeles-based band is getting its fill of the tunes, too. They've decided to cut their current tour short, take a break around Christmas and get to work on their sophomore release, so they can have more songs to choose from when building a set list.

"We've been touring around on this record nonstop for about a year and some change," member Drew Brown said of "Dreaming Out Loud," the group's 2007 debut record. "It didn't really take a lot of convincing on our part to say, 'Let's go make another record.' We're really excited about it."

The band, made up of frontman Ryan Tedder, guitarist Zach Filkins, drummer Eddie Fisher; bassist Brent Kutzle and Brown on guitar, will perform Dec. 3 at the Peoria Civic Center theater. The show starts at 6 p.m.

OneRepublic is the perfect example of what a site like MySpace can do for a little-known group. In 2003, Tedder and Filkins moved from

Colorado Springs to put a band together. At times the two barely had enough money to buy groceries. But they kept at it and finally got a record deal. Then, the record deal fell through.

"After all that time trying to get to where we were, getting dropped took the wind out of my sails," Tedder is quoted as saying on the band's MySpace page. "We weren't sure if we wanted to go on (with the band)."

But then, the MySpace page started getting hits. Fans would post messages about how a song moved them, and the band decided it would be hard to walk away from that kind of support.

"I think that we really lucked out," Brown said. "As big social networking sites like MySpace started to come about and become a really powerful force in music, we were lucky enough to be a part of that and lucky enough to get that much exposure all over the world as an unsigned band, which is really hard to do. I honestly don't know how we would've done it if it weren't for what came out of a grassroots online campaign. It ended up being great for us because I think we got to show the world that it's still really possible to do what you want just based on world of mouth."

OneRepublic's popularity with MySpace members got the attention of music mega-producer Timbaland, who has a history of putting people like Justin Timberlake and Nelly Furtado at the top of the charts. Timbaland, whose real name is Tim Mosley, remixed the band's song, "Apologize." He also helped produce "Dreaming Out Loud," and made OneRepublic the first rock band on his label.

"When we agreed to let Timabland remix 'Apologize,' we didn't really know what it was going to be like. We were all really apprehensive just because we're a rock band, he's primarily a hip-hop/R&B producer, etcetera. And it ended up turning out great. . . . He's a really brilliant, talented musician, and I'm sure we'll work with him again in the future."

Speaking of the future, what's the next record going to sound like? Brown won't say much yet, except: "I can say it's going to be a little bit different. I think if you liked the first one, you're going to have a really good shot at liking the second one. We're going to try some new things, we're going to mix it up and we're really excited about some of the things we have in store."

Brown said OneRepublic has been playing some of its brand new music on the current tour. Fans may want to pay attention, as these could be songs dominating the radio play lists in a year or so - if their current hits are any indication of their talent, anyway.

Digital Media Wire reported earlier this year that "Apologize" had sold more than 3 million digital downloads.

"We've been lucky enough to have so many cool, supportive people - around the world, really - that have been enjoying what we've done. And so we really don't want to let them down, we don't want any of them to wait two more years to get another record out of us. So we decided there's no better time than now."

Danielle Hatch can be reached at 686-3262 or dhatch@pjstar.com.

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